UConn holds on for key victory over Seton Hall
STORRS — Over the first 14 minutes of play on Saturday, the UConn men’s basketball team had five dunks, helping it to an 11-point lead.
The Huskies managed just two more slams the rest of the game, but they both came over a key stretch in which a two-point lead turned to 16 in an eventual 64-55 win over Seton Hall before a Gampel Pavilion sellout.
For the second time this season, UConn let a doubledigit, first-half lead against the Pirates gradually whittle down, until it was a twopoint game with as little as 12:28 left to play. But this time, the Huskies countered with a 14-0 run that wasn’t exactly scintillating, but was certainly effective.
“I was really happy to see us win a toughness game,” said coach Dan Hurley, after his Huskies outrebounded Seton Hall 39-25, including 14 offensive boards. “We’ve lost these types of ugly, mudfight games. Physical, choppy types of games. We knew we had a team coming in here that was in the bubble range. We knew we’d get a great effort from them.”
And while UConn nearly gave away its 16-point lead with six minutes to play, turning the ball over on five straight possessions (including a pair of shot-clock violations) and allowing the Pirates to sneak within six inside the final minute, the Huskies managed to hold on.
“The last four minutes,” Hurley confessed, “could have been a little cleaner.”
UConn (20-7, 9-7 Big East) pulled ahead of the Pirates by a half-game for fifth place in the Big East. The top five teams get a bye into the conference tournament quarterfinals.
Seton Hall, which beat UConn in a heartbreaker on Jan. 18 in Newark, N.J.. fell to 16-12 overall, 9-8 Big East.
Jordan Hawkins led the Huskies with 20 points, despite 3-for-11 shooting from 3. The 6-foot-5 sophomore authored the two most spectacular of UConn’s seven dunks, including a driving baseline jam that gave the Huskies a 30-19 lead with 5:42 left in the half.
“The shot wasn’t falling today, so I had to attack the rim and try a different way
to score,” Hawkins noted.
Meanwhile, Andre Jackson had perhaps his best game of the season, notching a 15-point, 10-rebound double-double that included UConn's final two dunks of the day — a two-handed stuff off a Hassan Diarra offensive rebound and pass that put UConn up four, and a transition dunk following a Donovan Clingan block amidst that game-changing, 14-0 run.
“I found my spots on the court (the coaching staff) told me to get to, and it turned out to be one of the better scoring performances of my career,” Jackson said.
Indeed, the 15 points was a career-high for the junior guard and his first doubledigit scoring effort since scoring 14 in a New Year's Eve loss at Xavier. Once again, his defender slacked off him in an almost disrespectful way, but Jackson (who was 0-for-4 from 3) found different ways to score.
“Cutting out of the corner when they're in the hold super-deep, and then passing and screening, because the guy is so far down in a dropcoverage, it basically gives the person I'm playing with damn near a wide-open shot,” he said. “Also cutting to the glass. When they're so deep in there, it's easier for me to get to the offensive glass. Just finding ways to turn that into a positive, finding ways to make me more effective.”
UConn led 32-21 after Tristen Newton's runner with 4:40 left in the first half. However, that was the Huskies' final basket of the half, as they missed their final eight and scoring just one point during that span.
Seton Hall wasn't much better, but a goaltend, then a Tray Jackson driving layup with 20.3 seconds left allowed the Pirates to enter the break down just six, 3327.
The Pirates closed to within two early in the latter half and remained there after a Femi Okudale driving layup with 12:28 to play. Then came that 14-0 run, started by a Diarra driving layup and capped six minutes later by a Hawkins 3pointer.
“That was a real kill shot,” Hurley said.
Scintillating? Maybe not. But effective and important? Absolutely.
“It was extremely important,” Diarra said. “I feel like a couple of games this season, we lacked toughness. We brought it today. Seton Hall is a very tough team, but we showed our grit today.”
It gets no easier on Wednesday, when the Huskies host border rival Providence in a second straight revenge game.
“Providence is one of the most physical teams in the country,” Hurley noted. “hey put enormous pressure on you with (Bryce) Hopkins and their centers and (Devin) Carter. These guys take it to you. We have another tough-man competition on Wednesday.”
RIM RATTLINGS
• Junior center Adama Sanogo missed a couple of practices this past week with a non-COVID illness, and was only a partial participant in practice on Friday. Hurley called him on Friday night to see how he felt.
“He's a man of few words,” Hurley reported. “(He replied), ‘I'm good, Coach.' ”
Sanogo was “a shell of himself” and finished with just six points and eight boards. Freshman Donovan Clingan helped pick up the slack with six points and six rebounds in 15 minutes, the most he's played since Jan. 31 at DePaul.
• Several former Huskies were at the game. James Bouknight, the 2021 NBA lottery pick, was in the building, appearing to go incognito with a hood and shades but signing autographs and posing for pictures with several fans. R.J. Cole and Tyrese Martin, two of the stars of last year's team, sat courtside. Cole is playing in Greece, while Martin is playing in the Atlanta Hawks organization. Former Huskies Christian Vital and Kentan Facey were also at the game, sitting behind the UConn bench, and Souleymane Wane was also in the house.
Coveted Class of 2024 recruiting target Tyler Betsey was also at the game. The 6foot-8 forward from Windsor is at St. Thomas More this season.
• Sanogo and Joey Calcaterra were recognized at midcourt prior to the game for having scored the 1,000th points of their respective college careers earlier this season.